This copy is for your personal non-commercial use only. To order
presentation-ready copies of Toronto Star content for distribution
to colleagues, clients or customers, or inquire about
permissions/licensing, please go to: www.TorontoStarReprints.com

Ontario Liberal leadership rivals make first pitches to party faithful

Liberal leadership hopefuls vying to take on Premier Doug Ford in the 2022 provincial election gathered for the first time in one place Thursday night, making pitches for support as the clock ticks toward to their March 7 convention.

With just over three months to go, the party that now has just five MPPs in the legislature held a “showcase” at the Chestnut Convention Centre in downtown Toronto where candidates were given five minutes each before a crowd of more than 200.

The rivals have until Monday to sell $20 party memberships to activists who will elect delegates to the leadership convention in Mississauga. There will be six debates across the province before then.

Former cabinet minister Steven Del Duca said he will make election readiness the priority for his first 100 days if chosen leader, pledging to quickly appoint campaign and platform co-chairs, and a committee to search for candidates in all 124 ridings.

“We will have only 26 months to be prepared for what I believe is the fight of our lives,” added Del Duca, who lost his Vaughan-Woodbridge riding to a Progressive Conservative in the July 2018 vote that devastated the Liberals. “We will be positioned to hit the ground running.”

He called for a campaign platform that gives Ontarians “a strong and profound sense that we can govern for them again,” added Del Duca, who leads all the candidates with more than $227,000 in donations.

Liberal MPP Mitzie Hunter (Scarborough-Guildwood) picked up on that theme, confidently saying “this is about the next premier.”

She touted her master’s in business administration degree, cabinet experience under defeated premier Kathleen Wynne and her time as chief executive of the CivicAction group.

“We are at a critical moment. Ontarians have lost trust in Doug Ford and in the next two years they will take a close look at us. And when they do, they must see a party with a new face, a new voice and new ideas for the future,” said Hunter.

Don Valley East MPP Michael Coteau, also a former cabinet minister under who handled the tricky autism portfolio, announced the endorsement of former McGuinty minister Joe Cordiano and took aim at education as the Ford government is mired in tense contract talks with teacher unions.

“My only conclusion is this — that Doug Ford thinks kids today are not worth the investment,” Coteau said, referring to Conservative plans for larger class sizes and more online courses.

“But we can’t assume that opposing Doug Ford will be enough for our party to win in 2022,” he added, portraying the Liberals’ rout at the hands of the Conservatives as “one of the greatest opportunities we have to build a party from the ground up, from the grassroots.”

Alvin Tedjo, the Liberal runner up in Oakville-Burlington in the 2018 vote, talked about his pledge to end Catholic school funding, merging the four public and separate school systems into secular English and French boards to save about $1.6 billion a year.

He took issue with the party’s approach to governing toward the end of its 15-year run and the 2018 election campaign.

“We stopped listening to Ontarians. We didn’t connect with them. We came across as a party that knew better than everybody else.”

Kate Graham, who placed third in former cabinet minister Deb Matthews’ riding of London North Centre in the 2018 vote, spoke from experience when she said “voters sent us a clear message.”

“But make no mistake, the Ontario Liberal Party will rise again. The question is into what,” she said to applause in an address that was light on specific policies.

Get more politics insight in your inbox

Make sense of what's happening across the country and around the world with the Star's This Week in Politics email newsletter.

“I’ve heard people say they think we moved too far to the left. You know what? I don’t think we moved too far to the left. I think we moved too far into the halls at Queen’s Park. So we have a big job to do. We have to earn back peoples’ trust.”

Brenda Hollingsworth, an Ottawa personal injury lawyer who committed to the $100,000 entry fee for the contest, did not speak at the event because she didn’t enter the race until Monday and has not yet been vetted by the party, but she did appear on stage for a group photo.

More from The Star & Partners

More Politics

Top Stories

Copyright owned or licensed by Toronto Star Newspapers Limited. All
rights reserved. Republication or distribution of this content is
expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Toronto
Star Newspapers Limited and/or its licensors. To order copies of
Toronto Star articles, please go to: www.TorontoStarReprints.com